This project seeks to achieve voluntary consensus on performance measures of immunizations for flu and pneumonia across healthcare settings in the United States. The goal is to identify a global measure or small set of aligned measures that are based on the same performance expectations.
There are many missed opportunities across the health care system, including physician practices, hospitals, nursing homes, and home care, where immunizations could have prevented serious illness and unnecessary and costly hospitalizations for pneumonia and influenza. Estimated flu vaccination coverage remains <50% among certain groups for whom routine annual vaccination is recommended1. In order to achieve universal immunization for all those who need them, greater emphasis on adult immunizations across providers and sites of care is needed. Currently, there are NQF-endorsed™ immunization measures in ambulatory, hospital, and nursing home care. Immunization measures also are under consideration for dialysis facilities. In order to identify gaps in appropriate immunization at the appropriate junctures, further work is needed to adopt more global, harmonized measures of immunization. The opportunity to increasingly link measurement across providers and sites of care will form the foundation for a systems-based perspective on immunization and the reduction or elimination of preventable illnesses and pneumonia.
1Prevention and Control of Influenza, Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), 2007. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5606a1.htm.
This project will focus on adult flu and pneumonia immunization measures directed primarily to the elderly and those with significant co-morbid illness and immunocompromised states, as well as immunization among healthcare personnel. This project does not include childhood immunizations; however, the measures could include children as appropriate for flu and pneumonia. The target settings for this project include (but are not limited to) nursing homes (short- and long-stay residents), home health agencies, hospitals, clinics, office practices, and dialysis facilities. This project is particularly interested in global measures of adult immunization that are applicable across settings and providers of care, including measures from administrative data such as state-based electronic immunization registries.
This project, like all NQF activities, involves the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders. The project is guided by a Steering Committee. Agreement around the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process.
Funding for this project has been provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
For more information, contact Karen B. Pace at 202.783.1300 or info@qualityforum.org.